Qualla: Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Dammers, CC BY 2.0. Imagine a single train, ten steam locomotives, all of them under steam at once - some pushing, some pulling, the sound of forty cylinders working in rough syncopation as black smoke piled into the September sky over Apeldoorn. That was the closing run of the Terug naar Toen festival in 2005 and 2006: a procession of borrowed and beloved iron, every working engine the Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij owned, coupled to a single line of carriages. The VSM is a heritage railway, but heritage here is not nostalgia under glass. The oldest engine in the shed was built in 1929 and is still expected to pull a load. The volunteers keep the fires lit because the alternative - cold boilers and silent yards - is unimaginable.

Image: Rob Dammers | CC BY 2.0

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: A Branch Line Saved

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joost J. Bakker from IJmuiden, CC BY 2.0. When the Dutch state railway, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, retired the line between Apeldoorn and Dieren for regular service, a group of enthusiasts saw what the timetable did not: 21 kilometres of well-graded track through some of the prettiest woodland in the Netherlands, dropping g...

Image: Joost J. Bakker from IJmuiden | CC BY 2.0

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: Engines From Three Countries

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pierre Vossen, CC BY-SA 4.0. The VSM owns 19 steam locomotives and 23 diesels, a fleet that reads like a roll call of mid-century European railways. Most of the steam engines are German, products of the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Deutsche Reichsbahn from the 1940s and 50s - the workhorse classes 23, 44, 50,...

Image: Pierre Vossen | CC BY-SA 4.0

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: Diesel Heritage Too

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Apdency, CC0. Heritage railways often dismiss diesels as a footnote, but the VSM treats them as a collection in their own right. The diesel fleet comes almost entirely from Nederlandse Spoorwegen and spans the workhorses of post-war Dutch railroading: tiny locomotors of the 200/300 series for ...

Image: Apdency | CC0

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: Terug naar Toen

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Dammers, CC BY 2.0. Each year on the first full weekend of September, the VSM holds Terug naar Toen - 'Back to Then.' The principle is simple: run everything that runs. Guest locomotives are invited from heritage railways elsewhere in Europe, the volunteers work double shifts, the platforms at Beekb...

Image: Rob Dammers | CC BY 2.0

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij: Keeping the Collection Together

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Dammers, CC BY 2.0. Heritage railways exist on a knife edge: an engine that breaks down at the wrong moment, a generation of volunteers that ages out, a private collection sold in pieces to museums abroad. In March 2011 one of the major locomotive owners decided to sell his collection, which would h...

Image: Rob Dammers | CC BY 2.0